Radiohead’s Thom Yorke somehow got ahold of a press pass yesterday and has been filing a series of increasingly vitriolic dispatches from the UN’s Climate Change Conference now playing out in Copenhagen with all the expected inertia. You can check ‘em out on the Radiohead band blog, Dead Air Space, but here’s a taste of Yorke’s totally valid indignation:

...there is a lot of brinksmanship, the americans offering money seemed. but no-one was talking 40 percent cuts by 2020. and the negotiations had an obvious G8 vibe about them. the west dictating terms and bizarrely assuming that the science could be bartered.. !!! arguing about who cuts what??? that somehow the amount we have to cut our emissions is negotiable?? what a crock of shit.

Jamais Cascio discusses the possibility of states getting into a Cold War-like situation over who can adapt to global warming fastest. Eerily plausible. And I don’t think the United States would be anywhere near the top of the pile.

What happens if global efforts to set and abide by strong carbon emissions cuts fail?

The standard answer to a question like this is that “we all suffer.” While that’s probably true, it misses the point—we may all suffer, but we don’t all suffer equally. Some nations will be hit harder by storms or droughts than others; some nations will have the resources and technologies to adapt better than others. And therein lies the potential for what may end up as a nasty tool of international competition.

There is, I believe, a non-zero chance that an extended period of climate instability could induce a state that believes itself to be better able to adapt to global warming to slow its efforts to decarbonize in order to gain a lead over its more vulnerable rivals.

In December, at the United Nations Climate Change Summit in Copenhagen, world leaders will come together to discuss this issue, and Canadians want results. zig joined with Environmental Defence, ForestEthics and hundreds of volunteers to produce this film, and the web site that goes with it, to inspire grassroots action from Canadian parents.

The effects of climate change are going to be very real within the lifetime of the current generation of children, and if our kids knew the facts, they would act. On the web site, people can upload their kids photos to be included in a projection that will appear on Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper?Ǭ?s route to work leading up to the conference to remind him who he?Ǭ?s representing in Copenhagen.

Zig’s cinematic spot for Moms Against Climate Change pits child protesters (shouldn’t they be in school?) against cops (don’t they have parking tickets to write?) to illustrate that if kids knew what was at stake, they’d take action. There’s no denying it packs a punch. That said, something feels off. I think I was expecting a boffo climax to really drive the point home. Why not have the sides embrace, each kid finding one of his or her parents among the riot squad, to symbolize that we’re all in this together? Conversely, acid rain pouring from above and “frying” every last person? That would make a strong statement! Sure, it’s easy for me to second-guess?